An Unusual ‘Kanak’ Hardwood War Club

Object Description

An Unusual ‘Kanak’ Hardwood War Club
Fine dark glossy patina from use, a lighter band where a now lost ‘binding’ would have acted also as a ‘wrist thong’
Wood
New Caledonian, Kanak
Early 19th Century

SIZE: 75cm long – 29½ ins long

Object History

Ex Private collection, Reading, Berkshire, England
Ex English Art Market
Ex Private collection

Object Literature

New Caledonian clubs come in a range of extraordinary shapes from phallomorphic to bird headed and in the early 20th century these Kanak weapons influenced and inspired sculptors such as Henry Moore (‘Studies of Sculpture from the British Museum pg. 105’) and artists such as Max Ernst and Andre Breton. Such clubs, were owned by high ranking men and signified their status as someone to be treated with respect.
Unusually in this powerful example is almost like a ‘root-stock’ natural formed head we find on Fiji ‘root-stock’ clubs.
Warfare was widespread throughout Island Melanesia until colonial influences brought it to an end after 1840. The particular kind of tactic practised consisted of ambush. Ancestors were considered particularly important in supporting and strengthening the living during warfare, and so there was a critical need to secure the dead and wounded from the enemy as the physical remains contained the power to attract ancestors to the places where they were kept. To the Kanak, relations between the living and the dead were dependent on the bodies of the deceased.

Object Details